‘Poor bear brunt of unequal food system’

Many communities across the country are experiencing high levels of hunger, obesity, diabetes and heart diseases which is largely the result of the poor quality of the food they eat.

This is one of the messages delivered by Healthy Living Alliance (HEALA) , an organisation which advances the right to food by advocating for more just food systems in South Africa through policy changes. The organisation held a workshop with various community stakeholders last week at Isivavana Centre in Khayelitsha.

The organisation believes that poor communities bear the brunt of the country's unequal food system - and affordable, nutritious food is hard to come by.

HEALA’s communication manager, Zukiswa Zimela, said their campaign is focused on improving food regulation, hunger alleviation measures and industry accountability.

Ms Zimele said their main campaign is also focused on pushing for the increase of the health promotion levy (sugar tax) to 20% to align it with the World Health Organization guidelines.

She said they wanted the government to push food producers to introduce front package warning labels to help South Africans make informed nutrition decisions, noting that most of the food that people are consuming is either high in fat, sugar and salt and that contributes to a number of diseases.

“Some of the foods that we eat are so low in nutrition that when we eat them they are not nourishing us.

“We have a malnourished nation. It is the government’s duty to ensure that we have access to good quality food and at the moment things are lacking hence we have a campaign called health promotion levy but many people call it sugar retax.

“We are calling for beverage companies to reduce sugar and increase sugar retax from 11% to 20%. If the government could apply this, these companies would be forced to use less sugar while encouraging people to drink less of these beverages,” she said.

She said they are now creating an awareness campaign in the township to encourage people to pay closer attention to the nutritional value of the food they’re consuming.

TAC provincial chairperson, Khayelethu Twalo said such workshops were important as they put the spotlight on the standard of food which is produced and made available to them.

Children Resource Centre representative, Mark Solomons offered his organisation’s full support this initiative, as some of the lifestyle diseases caused by poor quality food was also impacting young children.